Choc chip ice cream aka Stracciatella

I discovered Stracciatella ice cream when I lived in Italy, an ingenious solution of getting a quick chocolate fix within a creamy white basic ice cream. It kind of made me think I was doing well by not giving into the double chocolate ice cream that was my tempting me from the corner of my eye.

Have you ever been to Italy and come across one of their massive ice cream freezers which have a range of anything from 8 – 30+ different flavours?

When I lived in Italy we had an ice cream freezer in the bar of the hotel and we made our own ice cream. Of course, we had an industrial machine which churned the flavours to the creamiest gelato in town. My brother in law during his school summer holidays, which last 3 months on the continent, would make the ice creams needed every morning ready for the busy afternoon trade.

And busy it was. In high season he could make anything up to 10 new flavours every day.

We had half of the freezer dedicated to creamy flavours like vanilla, fior di latte, chocolate, coffee and stracciatella and the other half dedicated to fruity flavours like strawberry, raspberry, melon, kiwi and blackberry.

Can you imagine the luxury of choosing an ice cream every day?

When my younger brothers came out on a summer holiday in the early years of my time in Italy, they were both still at school. I think my youngest brother must have been about 12 and was, at the time, a huge fan of ice cream.

My ex asked him if he wanted an ice cream to which the reply was obviously, yes please. My ex asked which flavours he would like to try and my cheeky brother replied, ‘All of them please.’ with a huge smile on his face.

Not to be beaten, one ball of each flavour was carefully and beautifully served in a large glass bowl and placed in front of him. My younger brother stared in disbelief – and glee – at the amount of ice cream that was in front of him, as my ex smiled and walked away saying to me, ‘He asked for every flavour so I gave him every flavour, I want to see if he can get through that!’ The challenge was on.

He ate the lot.

He worked his way through about 20 balls of ice cream and didn’t bat an eyelid much to my ex’s disappointment.

Stracciatella ice cream

What I love about about the Stracciatella recipe is it uses ‘Fior di Latte’ as a base. Translated that’s the ‘flower of the milk’ or better known to us as the cream of the milk, so a very simple base with the addition of choc chips.

Now I didn’t have any choc chips to hand but I did have a block of the finest dark chocolate which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but tiny slithers in the midst of the creamiest ice cream could be a perfect combination right? Like a bitter sweet explosion, one after another.

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Tea lover, gin drinker or white wine - not fussy.
Itchy feet person who plans to see the world once the kids are grown up.
Full-time working mum in social media.
Blogger since Jan 2010.
Fuelled by chocolate - again not fussy.
Permanently knackered.